Heartbeat cancelled

ITV has confirmed that it has decided to cancel Heartbeat.

The Guardian reports that a final series of the show will be broadcast from next month.

Heartbeat, which follows a group of police officers in 1960s Yorkshire, has been on air for 18 years.

ITV insisted that the decision had not been made for financial reasons and explained that it wants to focus more on shorter dramas broadcast over a week.

A spokesperson said: "Heartbeat has been an important part of the television landscape over the last 18 years and we are incredibly proud of what it achieved in its heyday as one of ITV1's top rated dramas. But we are overhauling our schedule to reflect the changing demands of our audience, refreshing the mix of programming we commission and broadcast.

"We will continue to maintain our significant investment in the genre, the biggest of any commercial broadcaster, but ITV1's future focus will be on new and varied drama commissions."

The final series of Heartbeat will begin on July 18.

Digital Spy

and the final run is just about to start? ITV are right

Yes! Finally this show comes to an end. Sadly I had to watch this crap when I was growing up and the show was soo pathetic. Same story after same story week in week out...

Copper falls in love with nurse, the breaks up, then gets back together

Major siege in the village, all is well, then another disaster.

They might aswell just have repeated the same episode for the past 18 years!

Never as good once Nick and Kate left.

It was good in the old days, I remember being sat watching it every Sunday, dreading the next day (Monday xD)

That's true, but it did become more ensemble after that-- Greengrass leaving was another sore point for me. That said, it still rivalled Emmerdale in the ratings in the past years.

Granted it got formulaicl but I always like watching it, good way of unwinding on a Sunday evening. Call me sad :lol

Not much of a shock, is it? When they said it was being "rested" all that time ago, we all knew what they really meant.

It's a YTV product, or course ITV are cancelling it... heaven forbid funding a department making programmes that actually got viewers!

it doesn't have enough violence and live voyerism for an ITV audience

It doesn't surprise me that Heartbeat has been axed - it has ran for too long and, as already pointed out, many of the storylines were more or less "the same old thing". One thing that has really surprised me about Heartbeat is that although it has ran for 18 years, it is still set in the sixties!

wasn't Darling Buds of May axed because David Jason didn't want the characters going on to the 60's and 70's

No surprise - it's been stuck in 1969 about a decade, and probably should have been ditched a few years before it was - or at least replaced with a seventies spin-off.


I don't like though the move to even more drama stripped across a single week. ITV (and the BBC) need returning weekly drama, and it's no good having one big drama stripped across the schedule every few weeks and then virtually nothing in the 9pm slots in the weeks until the next one.